The present invention is related to the compositing and blending of digital artwork data.
Many graphics processing computer programs, such as the Adobe Illustrator® program, available from Adobe Systems Incorporated of San Jose, Calif., build a final image of vector and/or raster artwork by compositing two or more elements together. The elements may be thought of as drawn on stacked sheets of acetate. The density of the ink on the acetate controls the transparency of the sheet, i.e., the extent to which that sheet obscures the images from the underlying sheets.
Each element typically includes artwork data and compositing controls. The elements can be represented by an array of pixels or analytically, e.g., by using shape outlines, or by other functions which map positions to data values. In addition, the data can be dynamic, that is, computed from other data at the time the elements are composited.